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Edited on Thu Sep-03-09 08:02 PM by alphafemale
I'll recount an abridged version as best I can.
A man is walking down a road. At first it feels foggy and ethereal and he thinks he must be dreaming. His boyhood dog is walking by his side and that makes it seem even more like fantasy. After all, the dog was buried sixty years ago under a shade tree long ago gone to a subdivision.
But gradually everything comes into sharper focus, and he realizes he can feel the sunshine on his back and a soft breeze in his face. He knows that he's never had a dream like that before. "I've never even dreamed in color," he thinks to himself.
He tries to will himself awake anyway. He gets a brief glimpse of being very sick and very old but then it passes.
But now he feels incredibly young and strong again. He let's out a whoop and scales a nearby tree. He sits on a low hanging branch. He can feel the roughness of the bark.
He suddenly swings down and kneels by the dog.
"Casey? Am I dead?"
The dog raises up and licks his face. He embraces the long lost companion. In that moment he thought that if this WAS the afterlife they hadn't resolved the dog breath issue as of yet.
Casey and the man walk down the dirt road for a very long time...maybe 200 years in the way we measure time...or maybe it was a millisecond. It's really hard to say.
But they come across this enormous wall that lined the road. It was beautiful, sky blue pink. And it was huge. The walls seemed to raise a mile into the sky.
After a very long time they came to a gate.
The man went up to the gate. There was another man there. The man greeted him.
"Charles! We've been expecting you!"
The man puzzled for a moment then vaguely recalled that people used to call him Charles.
"This is Heaven, then?" he asked.
"Of course it is!" the white robe figure gushed. "Peek through the gate! The gold paved streets, the celestrial chior...they're all right there!"
"Um...Ok"
"Wait...what's THAT.'
"That's my dog, Casy"
"Well...he can't come in here'
"What?"
"Your name's in the book...and you are one in one hundred thousand that can enter. You lived an extraordinary life. You can enter and get your reward. But you can't Enter with the dog."
"I guess I'll be moving on then," the man said.
"Your giving up paradise...for a dog?" the gatekeeper sneered.
"Yeah, I guess I am."
The man and dog walked for a very long time again. They eventually came to a split rail fenced with a gate and a man in overalls sitting on the rail.
"Howya doin'?" the man on the rail asked.
"Do you have a place where my dog can get a drink of water?" the man asked. "We've been walking for what seems like forever."
The man hopped down and opened the gate. "Sure, thing. There's a hand pump right over there. A little work but it comes up cool and sweet. Just like you remember."
The man asked, "What is this place?"
The other man laughed and said "Heaven, of course! Where did you think you were?"
"But...the place down the road said it was Heaven"
The other man laughed. "Yeah, they do that. That's actually...Hell"
"What? Aren't you upset that they present themselves to be Heaven? How can they do that?"
"Actually? We're happy that they weed out all the ones who would leave their best friend behind."
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